Recognize This Pattern?

About a year ago, we identified a challenge facing our organization—a challenge not unlike others we have encountered. It was familiar because it was rooted in the mechanics of our everyday work and required us to collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholder groups we believed we understood well. Although this challenge wasn’t a matter of life or death, overcoming it successfully would have been highly beneficial. We strategically scheduled meetings with our internal experts and leaders who produced numerous posters, used post-it notes, and devised an action plan to address the issue. The solution required some parts of our organization to change how they worked, while others remained unaffected. Ultimately, a slide deck communicated the challenge, the analytical process, our plan—and it all ended with the question, “Any Questions?” Yet, no one asked any questions.

Looking back, the challenge still persists. The units responsible for implementing change appear remarkably similar to before, and we continue to record what we call successes. Just last week, another set of meetings was scheduled to tackle a new problem, likely to end with a slide that asks, “Any Questions?” Does this sound familiar to you?

High-Engagement, Low Benefit

Consider the immense workload involved in gathering input, analyzing data, and formulating elaborate plans in conference rooms. We invest countless hours producing slide decks filled with our best-laid intentions, culminating in the familiar “Any Questions?” slide at the end of every presentation. Despite this high level of engagement with the problem and the process of designing solutions, the tangible benefit to the organization is often minimal. In other words, even though we follow an accepted and outwardly legitimate process, the outcome tends to be haphazard implementation rather than sustainable change.

How might this look in real life? 

• Imagine a scenario where management recognizes that departments are isolated and not working in concert. In response, they reorganize into cross-functional, project-focused teams. Yet, due to the inability to adapt physical spaces effectively and overcome deeply entrenched communication methods, staff members end up spending more time within their familiar departmental teams than in the new cross-functional groups.

• Consider another example: Changes to grant-funded programs necessitate the collection of new types of data across the organization. A dedicated team meets with relevant stakeholders and decides to create a new database that runs parallel to the legacy system. When it comes time to generate reports, however, leaders find that most teams have continued to work within the legacy system, sharing the required information through emails and post-its rather than using the new tool.

• A recent analysis of newly hired employees further highlights the issue. In response to identified needs, a cross-departmental team develops a plan to move existing training and resources to a Learning Management System (LMS), aiming to provide greater flexibility and accountability. Yet, even with high levels of compliance with the LMS, the behaviors and outcomes of new staff continue to decline.

• A regular cadence of meetings was established six years ago to ensure that team members from across the organization had time together to coordinate efforts and collaborate. Initially conceived as a method to build relationships, these bi-monthly meetings have since become a source of frustration. Rather than fostering collaboration, the meetings are now dominated by reporting data and project benchmarks. As a result, most team members have shifted to holding ad hoc gatherings and using asynchronous tools to achieve the intended goals of the original bi-monthly sessions.

Myths and Rituals

All too often, organizations engage in rituals that enact the myths of “effective leadership.” Meyer and Rowan (1977) argue that these rituals are not primarily designed to enhance operational performance but instead serve to signal legitimacy and conformity to established norms. In this view, the formal ceremonies and symbols associated with effective leadership function as a socially accepted script—a myth—that organizations follow to gain the trust and approval of external stakeholders, even if these practices do not directly translate into improved internal processes.

In many cases, our myths compel us to adopt a problem-solving pattern brimming with rituals that feel productive at the time yet fail to deliver the desired outcomes. The challenge is that while these myths and rituals may have once conferred legitimacy, they no longer guarantee effectiveness.

Enacting myths and rituals is not necessarily a failure of leadership or creativity. Meyer and Rowan (1977) suggest that organizations often decouple functions—so that while legitimacy-seeking behaviors continue, other elements adapt to perform the real work needed to manage complexity. This might look like executive leadership crafting an action plan (shared via a slide deck) while individual departments and employees take the necessary steps to address actual organizational demands. It could also involve a reorganization where departments are restructured into cross-functional teams, even though employees continue to work in the same locations or communicate as they did before. The key point is that the script often does not match the movie.

Margaret Wheatley wrote, “The lists and charts we make do not capture experience. They only tell of our desire to control a reality that is slippery and evasive and perplexing beyond comprehension. Like bewildered shamans, we perform rituals passed down to us, hoping they will perform miracles” (2006). It isn’t the posters with lists and charts, or the slide decks filled with flowcharts, frameworks, and methodologies, that are the problem. Instead, systems thinking challenges us to consider that the way we conceptualize our work—and the way we ask others to think—might be the true barrier to adaptation and change. Let’s keep the post-its, posters, and meetings, but shift our focus from linear, mechanistic models of change to a perspective that values interconnections, relationships, and feedback.

Systems Thinking: Moving Past the Rituals

Systems thinking offers a transformative framework for breaking free from the cycle of ritualized problem-solving and the static myths of effective leadership. Unlike traditional approaches that isolate individual elements, systems thinking views the organization as an interconnected whole, where every decision and action contributes to a larger ecosystem. By prioritizing interconnections and cause-and-effect relationships, systems thinkers engage a variety of viewpoints, share the burden and benefit of thinking with others, and generate commitment for change and adaptation. Again, the posters and post-it notes are not the problem - we need to consider whose perspectives are “in the room” and how we find leverage to manage our complex organizational contexts.  

Embracing Complexity and Interconnectedness

Systems thinking invites us to acknowledge and embrace the inherent complexity of our organizations. Rather than clinging to predefined scripts, this approach encourages us to explore the relationships and feedback loops that exist among departments, processes, and stakeholder groups. When we appreciate these interconnections, we begin to understand how seemingly minor changes in one area can ripple throughout the organization, sometimes with unexpected consequences.

Uncovering Underlying Causes  and Adopting Adaptive Strategies

A key advantage of systems thinking is its focus on identifying the underlying causes of persistent challenges. Instead of repeatedly resorting to the same ritualistic approaches, we are prompted to ask critical questions: Why do we fall into these familiar patterns? How might our established rituals be inadvertently hindering true progress? This deeper inquiry enables us to shift from superficial fixes to adaptive strategies that respond to the evolving dynamics of our organization—strategies that are tailored to the real challenges at hand, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.

Enhancing Collaboration and Breaking Down Silos

Traditional myths and rituals often contribute to organizational silos, where teams and departments operate in isolation. Systems thinking, however, promotes cross-functional collaboration by revealing how each part of the organization influences the whole. When team members understand their role within a larger, interdependent system, they are more inclined to work together towards common goals. This collaborative spirit can spark innovative solutions that transcend the limitations of isolated, ritualistic practices.

Cultivating a Culture of Continuous Learning

In today’s rapidly changing environment, clinging to static rituals can hinder innovation and adaptation. Systems thinking champions a culture of continuous learning and iterative improvement. By emphasizing ongoing feedback and real-world experimentation, this approach shifts the focus from merely performing ceremonies to actively learning from our successes—and our failures. Such a mindset not only drives innovation but also builds the resilience necessary for navigating complex challenges.

Aligning Strategy with Operational Reality

Finally, systems thinking helps bridge the gap between the symbolic actions we use to gain legitimacy and the operational realities of our work. By aligning strategic intentions with the actual work processes, organizations ensure that the rituals we perform are not just for show—they become integral parts of a coherent, responsive system. This alignment is essential for creating change that is both effective and sustainable.

The Waters Center Approach

The Habits of Systems Thinking are an essential tool to promote a transition from myth and ritual to real, generative, and adaptive thinking. When practiced, these habits support the important mental shifts necessary for prioritizing patterns, valuing relationships, and challenging the mental models that often keep us tethered to outdated ways of working.

The Waters Center Approach builds on these habits by providing a structured framework that guides individuals and organizations in recognizing and acting on the complexities inherent in their work. Rather than discarding our familiar tools—like post-its, posters, and slide decks—this approach encourages us to rethink how we use them. It shifts the focus from simply following a predetermined script to engaging deeply with the interconnected nature of our challenges. This means questioning our assumptions, examining feedback loops, and exploring the often-overlooked relationships between various elements of our organizational systems.

At its core, The Waters Center Approach is about moving beyond superficial fixes and ritualistic problem-solving. It teaches us to:

• Identify Leverage Points: By mapping out the complex interdependencies within our organization, we can pinpoint where small, targeted changes may lead to significant improvements.

• Embrace Continuous Learning: It champions a mindset that values ongoing feedback and adaptation over static, one-size-fits-all solutions.

• Facilitate Cross-Functional Collaboration: Recognizing that real progress requires diverse perspectives, this approach fosters environments where all voices contribute to the solution.

• Align Strategy with Reality: By linking symbolic actions to the real work being done, it ensures that our strategies are not just for show but are integral parts of a coherent, responsive system.

In practice, The Waters Center Approach empowers teams to see beyond the rituals that have become routine. It transforms the way we conceptualize our challenges—encouraging us to look at the whole system rather than isolated parts. This, in turn, creates an organizational culture that is not only more resilient in the face of change but also more innovative in crafting solutions that are deeply rooted in the reality of our work.

In Summary

Our tendency to fall into familiar patterns of rituals and myths—like those described by Meyer and Rowan (1977)—serves as a reminder of how we often default to established processes, even when they no longer yield the desired results. Systems thinking challenges us to look beyond these familiar scripts. By embracing complexity, uncovering root causes, fostering collaboration, and aligning our strategies with operational realities, we can move past the ceremonial aspects of leadership and effect meaningful, adaptive change in our organizations.

Adopting a systems perspective doesn’t mean discarding all traditional tools; rather, it means using them within a broader, more dynamic framework—one that values interconnections and continuous learning over rigid, mechanistic approaches. This shift can transform our organizations into agile, resilient systems capable of navigating today’s complexities and tomorrow’s uncertainties.

References

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.

Wheatley, M. J. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.